3 Ways to Copy the Kangaroo in Moving Forward

News Flash: Today on Move Forwards, we discover that the kangaroo is unable to move backwards. Wait, what has that got to do with anything, am I right? Especially when Move Forwards promotes forward movement. Well, yes, that’s double true. Move Forwards does promote forward movements, just as it is true that a kangaroo is unable to go backwards. But when a kangaroo gets stuck it needs to move through a series of steps, which we cover in this post. The ways to move forward are to stop, turn around, and go back. Sometimes going back, is actually movement forwards. Let’s discover more!

1. Stop

A kangaroo cannot walk or hop backwards. How annoying is that? Imagine it’s walking and munching then oops, drops the yummy handful and there it is, a whole foot adjacent, behind. Now it will need to move forwards to make a circle and go back to the food. How utterly inconvenient. Hmmm.. though it sounds like perhaps we humans aren’t so different.

First Thing to do? Stop!

When the kangaroo dropped the food, in our above example, what does it do first? It stops. Now consider this situation. Your hands are full of books and files as you dash through the school corridor hoping you’re not totally late for class. The books and files are starting to spread as their covers are slippery. You try to keep it together and BAM. All across the corridor books and files go flying. Oh no, some of the pages have opened, what if others read the text? What will be the next thing our figurative character does? Stops. We have covered stopping in a previous post for our traffic sign series, read about stopping here.

Stop and Assess

Stopping is needed to re-assess the situation.
Yes, carrying that much stuff wasn’t wise.
Yes, dashing while carrying all that stuff is double unwise.
Yes, there is a mess around you. Now what?

2. Turn Around or Go Back

After stopping and assessing you will need to turn around or go back. In the case of the example, the stuff is everywhere, so the character will need to go around and pick up the stuff.

Go Back and Correct Your Attitude

Sometimes the item was bumped out of our hands, and we may feel the other person or the ‘bumper’ is responsible and owes us. Brewing about their behavior and demanding they change, they pick up the stuff, they apologize. But it would be just as easy to talk honestly and openly and see how to reclaim the item that was bumped away. Without getting worked up unnecessarily.

Dropped or Let Go?

In other moments, we may have dropped the item. But if you dropped it because you also needed to let go of the item, this can be progress. Congratulate yourself. Many of us can struggle at this stage. However, if you dropped the item. Circle back to stopping, assessing, and then going back to pick it up. Pick up where you were up to and then continue.

3. Go Get It

I don’t want to get it, that’s embarrassing! Sure, it might be but think beyond that feeling of embarrassment. Is this an item, a feeling, a moment, a treasure, a person, or a relationship, that is important to you? Will other people judge? Possibly and yes. Should it matter though? No. Other people will always have whatever opinion of you, and generally it shouldn’t matter. Much time is wasted worrying about what other people think. From the words of a psychologist, most people are too wrapped up in their minds thinking about themselves, and are not worried about what you are or are not doing.

So chin up, go get it back – provided it wasn’t hurting you, or abusing you in any way. Step over your stuckness and move forwards, like the kangaroo.